Salutations of the season to noses everywhere; I hope you have all had a great Christmas and that the turkey and Christmas pud is not sitting too heavily upon the stomach. I decided that logistically a trip up to Birmingham was going to be too difficult and I would view it from the comfort of my armchair in the company of my lads with a beer each. I have to confess I thought it was not going to be a particularly happy experience as I felt we would probably get turned over in this one and anything we could take out of the game would be a bonus. I felt that West Ham have greater resources than us at present and our form hasn’t been the most edifying especially in the goal scoring department so a 0-1 score line was my forecast with West Ham frustratingly seeing the game out having taken the lead.
What I didn’t expect was how early they were going to do it and the visitors could have scored after barely a minute when a dangerous whipped ball across the six yard box by Faubert saw no one gambling to get a touch on it from only four yards out. If this was a warning it wasn’t heeded as Carlton Cole scored one of the easiest goals he will ever net for the Hammers when a powder puff tackle by Ibanez was easily ridden and the big striker had all the time in the world to pick his spot across Myhill into the far corner. “Ooh Uncle Sam, I’ve been left a Christmas present and it’s from the Birmingham defence and look its all wrapped up in pretty paper with ribbons and a bow and it says; ‘Merry Christmas Carlton from Pablo and all the Birmingham team!’ I’ve opened it and it’s a one on one with the goalie with not a defender within yards of me and all the time in the world to score Uncle Sam.” “That’s nice son, why don’t you take your present out on the pitch and try it out eh?” “Ooh thanks Uncle Sam.” At the risk of sounding facetious, this has to be the worst goal that we have conceded all season and I feared that my original view of how things would pan out was going to be so much worse.
It should have been, as West Ham proceeded to outplay us despite our high possession statistic. True we had one or two shots but I don’t recall Birmingham actually threatening the visitors whilst at the other end Blues were lucky not to concede again as our defence struggled to cope with Cole up front, ably supported by Faubert and Nolan. Ibanez made amends to a certain extent when a fine block tackle with Cole about to tap in from a matter of five yards, prevented a mountain to climb for the home side. Faubert should have doubled West Ham’s advantage with a free header; the fact that he didn’t is down to Murphy’s illegal block with his hand which resulted in a corner. The decision should have been a penalty and arguably a red card for the full back but the incident was missed completely by the officials. It could have been worse for the Londoners two minutes later, as Murphy forced Rob Green to make a fine save to his left from a 30-yard free-kick but in reality the ball swerved towards the keeper and it was a regulation save in the end. Carlton Cole nearly scored again on the stroke of half-time with a wonderful touch and turn allowing him to get the shot off across Myhill but this time the keeper made the save of the game to palm the ball out for a corner to keep the score reasonable and Birmingham still with a chance.
After a sluggish start to the second half, Birmingham started to get back into the game Chris Burke fired a shot that went wide of Green’s post before Carlton Cole of all people cleared off the line from Caldwell from a corner. Set pieces have reaped little reward for Blues all season but our efforts looked a lot more hopeful in this encounter. When Nikola Zigic came on for the ineffective Chris Wood on 55 minutes things started to change and he went close with two headers in the space of five minutes, one of which cleared the angle between bar and post by millimetres, with Green an onlooker. West Ham started to look ragged as they defended deeper and deeper, trying to see the game out and the hosts finally got their reward with nine minutes remaining from a corner that was headed back across the goal by Zigic to Murphy who headed home just inside the post from where a West Ham defender had gone AWOL. Marlon King could have made it a perfect Boxing Day a minute later, but he was foiled by a one-handed save by Green. A draw was a fair result in the end but let’s not delude ourselves here; West Ham could and should have been 3-0 up at half time and we could have had no complaints. They were so much better than us in the first period and it is only the fact that they sat off us in the second half that they allowed us back in. A point against a good side like this was one more than I was expecting so I’m happy.
The Good: The second half performance after a poor first half when the visitors could have been out of sight.
The Bad: The defending for both goals to be honest, especially theirs as it was a gift in keeping with the season.
The Ugly: Shocking tackle by Nolan on Zigic in the second half. I am a great admirer of Kevin Nolan and I wish we had him in our squad but his stamp on Zigic was premeditated, cowardly and dangerous and should have been sanctioned with a red card rather than a yellow; he’s a lucky boy.
Birmingham City: Boaz Myhill 7, Jonathan Spector 7, Steven Caldwell 7, Pablo Ibanez 6, David Murphy 7, Chris Burke 8, Keith Fahey 7, Guirane N’Daw 8, Jean Beausejour 6 (Nathan Redmond, 70, 6), Marlon King 6, Chris Wood 6 (Nikola Zigic, 56, 7).
Subs not used: Colin Doyle, Liam Ridgewell, Jordon Mutch.
Bookings: None
Goals: Murphy (81)
West Ham United: Robert Green 7, George McCartney 7, Kevin Nolan 8, James Tomkins 6, Carlton Cole 8 (John Carew, 74, 6), Mark Noble 7, Joey O’Brien 7, Julien Faubert 8 (Freddie Sears, 84, N/A), Papa Bouba Diop 8, Frederic Piquionne 6 (Henri Lansbury, 58, 6), Daniel Potts 7.
Subs not used: Ruud Boffin, Gary O’Neil.
Bookings: Nolan (61), Faubert (70), McCartney (78), Noble (78)
Goals: Cole (4)
Referee: Darren Deadman 6: Fine for the most part but missed Murphy’s hand ball luckily for us and Nolan’s shocking challenge on Zigic. If he saw this and he must have done to give the yellow card, he has bottled his responsibilities and Nolan faces no further sanction. In fairness, from directly behind the incident, it doesn’t look as bad as it does side on but Nolan should have walked.
Attendance: 20, 214 (1,377 West Ham fans).
wat was the reception like for Gold
Bazza , not sure if you wrote this article mate but if you did you should be on motd instead of the puppets and muppets that they have on there !!!! You have written this as it was and it makes a nice change to have someone doing that . Not sure about some of your scores on performances though . Don’t big us up too much either cos we are where we should be …. a reasonable team in the Championship , if we were Prem this season we would get murdered !!!! Keep up the good work mate and we will prob see you the season after next !!! Wes .
Oh yeah , Im West Ham by the way !!!
Its normally blues who rue the missed chances after dominating for long spells but it was a well deserved point in the end. Im still of the opinion that Zigic should be starting games week in week out. When he came on against West Ham the big fella looked as menacing as we have seen him this season. Lets hope he keeps that up now and helps blues reach that top 6.
Once again a true and fair assessment of the game. For once I actually got to see it; coverage of the Championship is minimal here across the pond and I am sure the only reason the game was covered was because West Ham are highly favored for a quick return to the EPL. In any case we are where we are (games in hand notwithstanding cos they are only any good if you win them and we probably won’t) because we are an average second tier side with little in the way of attacking threat. I await to be proven wrong but given the financial state of the club it’s probably best that we don’t make it back to the big time this year cos we would undoubtedly come straight back down. I think we have to consider this period as one of rebuilding but as I have said more than once before, until the business side of things gets sorted, there is little hope of progress. I remain hopeful however that the ownership issues will get sorted out at some point. Then we can look forward to a period of stability. Good to see a good spirit and effort in this side though.
Im not so sure why we should sit back and think, “ah well, we are where we are”. Do you think Swansea fans thought promotion was out of their reach, or Blackpool fans before that? They possibly did but they reached the play-offs and made it into the Prem. Birmingham were in no mans land when Steve Bruce took over from TF and went on a run in the final 10 games to clinch a play-off place and subsequently earn a place in the Prem. This Birmingham team now is good enough to make the play-offs this season. If there are any suitors out there thinking of buying Birmingham City or the chinese looking for a major investor, then having Premier League status is a very big help indeed!
On West Ham blogs they don’t rate Nolan highly. I thought he was hardly in the game, apart from the one on Zigic.
Thank you all for your views and all best wishes for the season. Thanks Wes; yes I did write the article and can understand with the posting by my mate Aylesburyblue why it may appear confusing. I always try and write it the way I see it and most of all apply a fair and balanced view of the two sides. It is so easy to get carried away with the virtues of your own team and that is only natural but I do try and steel myself against doing that otherwise the report has a reduced value.
Parkp mate, I live in hope that Blues will pick up some of the form of a few weeks back when they won about six on the trot and speed up the table but I fear there have been too many games with too thin a squad and this has told over time. There is no reason at all why Blues should not get into the play-offs but we are going to need some good fortune, a favourable January window and limited injuries and suspensions. To claim a place, we have to beat the teams we should beat especially at home and recently we haven’t been doing that and our away form is nowhere near good enough to justify a promotion berth. If these improve then there is still plenty of the season left to lift us into the play-off spots; I live in hope because another trip to Wembley would be fun but we have to be realistic enough to accept that there are a number of sides in this division perfectly capable of stopping us getting there.
To my kid brother in Austin Texas; glad you were able to see the game over there 🙂
Good article and fair assessment of the game.
The only bits i would add are the handball by Spector which the ref had a perfect view of but chose to ignore and Zigic’s foul on Diop about a minute before Nolan’s challenge on Zigic. I don’t condone Nolan’s retaliation but the ref should have given Zigic a yellow at least. Nolan should have gone and as you say he was a lucky boy.
Ref was quite awful IMO. Some very strange decisions for both sides and of course the two missed penalties for us which really hurt.
Probably see you in the play-offs. We’ve had several chances to go past Southampton recently and haven’t been hungry enough to take them. Injuries and suspensions are starting to take their toll on our fairly small squad. We desperately need to win our next two otherwise we will lose our 2nd spot to Boro.
Good luck for the rest of the season
parkp, I appreciate your observations and please forgive me, I did not want to convey an attitude of defeatism but like my learned brother, Bazza, says, we have to be realistic. To survive and progress in the EPL takes a big money commitment and that is tough to accomplish given the problems that we appear to be in. This is why I suggest that maybe it’s best if we don’t go up this year, then maybe we will be better prepared when a more solid business plan is in place for the club. Believe me I am all about a winning attitude. As I had said many times when we were under AM’s leadership, a large part of our problem then was a defeatest attitude and I still maintain that if someone like Ian Holloway had been our manager at that time we would still be in the EPL. Just look at Villa now under AM’s overly defensive approach. Like us a year ago they are and we were difficult to beat but we didn’t win many games either and neither will they; I see a case of deja vu happening in the claret and blue side of town. I don’t see anything wrong with us performing within our financial limitations at the moment, we are playing some good stuff and we hopefully can look forward to better times ahead. It’s not all been bad, we have had a dabble in Europe and performed well there; other results worked against us, otherwize we’d still in in it. As our song goes: keep right on!! Cheers!
Your write up was spot on, we managed to get away with a poor first half display, but the second half was encouraging! But we need to start playing for 90 mins!
Nolan was very lucky and so was Zigic that challenge could of put him out for the rest of the season!
We have to take the point and start to build on it!!!